Winter of Redemption (19 page)

Long ago, he'd changed his name and recreated his past in an effort to become something besides the dirtiest little boy in the worst part of Appalachia. Suave, confident Hayden Winters was as fictitious as the novels he wrote. Dora Lee wouldn't have cared anyway. All she cared was that he sent money.

For her unconcerned ignorance, Hayden would ever be
grateful to the God who'd rescued him from the mines and Dora Lee Briggs. If the press got hold of his mother, Hayden could kiss his tightly controlled privacy goodbye.

He was glad she couldn't read, though as a needy boy, hoping to please his mother, he'd offered to teach her. For his offer, she'd battered him with the book until the binding loosened and the pages ripped, raging that she wasn't as stupid as he thought.

At least a couple of times a year, he made the trek to see her, again out of some psychological wound that needed to be fed. Each time, he'd leave behind another piece of himself along with a parting gift that she would trade, in addition to her monthly draw, for Oxycontin or whatever pills she could get that would take her away from reality for a while.

Dora Lee Briggs was his ugly secret. One of them.

With the wound in his soul open and throbbing, Hayden stuck a cup of water in the microwave. Lemon zinger would have to do.

* * *

Carrie Riley tiptoed down the stairs, shivering in her bare feet and lightweight pajamas. Storms made her nervous.
Really
nervous. She couldn't sleep. Couldn't begin to sleep with all that fierce wind whipping the trees and thunder making her jump out of her skin. How anyone else could sleep boggled her well-ordered mind.

She didn't know where she was going, considering the late
hour, but since the family parlor housed the inn's only downstairs television to check the weather, she'd head there. What if a tornado was coming? Didn't anyone in this house think about that?

Carrie hated storms. Absolutely hated them. Even in infancy, according to her mother, Carrie had screamed like a banshee, inconsolable, at the first thunderclap. She didn't scream anymore, but she did quake and shake and long for someone to hold her.

Penlight aimed at the floor, she gripped the banister and made her way down. The third step squeaked. She stopped, winced, and then went on. She was such a wimp. Such a mouse.

A sleep-over was a silly thing for grown women to do but yesterday in the light of day, before the storm, time spent with sisters and friends had sounded like the perfect respite. She and her two sisters, lifelong friends of the inn's sister-owners, Valery Griffin and Julia Presley, had decided on a weekend retreat to reconnect and have some fun. Julia was making a fresh effort to reclaim old friends and move forward after the terrible abduction of her son six years ago, and Carrie was pleased to be part of her friend's healing.

They'd had a great time, exchanged stories and giggled over a bit too much sangria as they painted toenails and discussed Julia's engagement to Eli Donovan of
the
Knoxville Donovans and urged her to have a big, fancy wedding right here at Peach
Orchard Inn.

Now, the others were snoozing like fossil rocks while she trembled in fear over the storm and nursed the teeniest headache. Wine had a tendency to do that to plain old Carrie of the boring life who rarely drank anything stronger than a single shot espresso. She couldn't even tolerate a double.
Wimp.

At the bottom of the steps, she noticed a light in the kitchen. Curious and eager for human companionship, Carrie hurried on shaky knees across the cool wood floors, but skittered to a stop in the arched doorway when she spotted him. For the person in the kitchen was definitely a him. A lean, rangy, masculine him.

He obviously had not yet been to bed. Still in casually expensive jeans she recognized only by the label on the back pocket holding a cell phone and a navy, long-sleeved pullover with the sleeves pushed back, he was turned away from her lifting a teabag in and out of a China cup. His wide shoulders, like his forearms were muscled, his hands long and strong looking as if he worked outside for a living. But not in those jeans. Or that haircut.

He wore a rich man's haircut. She knew this because her sister, Nikki, was the most fashion conscience woman in Honey Ridge. Boutique owner Nikki knew fashion, knew haircuts, knew high-end anything, unlike Carrie, who couldn't tell Gucci from a gunny sack and basically didn't care. The man's brown, straight
hair was casually shoved off his forehead in a loose, sexy muss that probably cost a bazillion dollars to maintain.

Carrie couldn't decide whether to speak or wait until he noticed her. In her case, that might be another fifty years. Men did not notice Carrie Riley. Not unless they wanted to check out a book.

The loudest clap of thunder ever heard, at least to Carrie, rocked the countryside. The house trembled. Lightning followed on its tail, a blinding explosion of light and sound that crackled the air.

Carrie jumped, fists raised, and squeaked.

The spoon clattered against the counter. The man stilled and then slowly turned his head. He was good looking, darn it. Romantic looking, like one of the poets she read incessantly with a deep longing for
that
kind of love to find its way to her house. Now, she'd be a bumbling, stuttering mess for more reasons that the storm.

“Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you.” She crossed her arms tightly over her chest.

A very nice, full-lipped mouth curved. Eyes the color of fog and smoke and mystery watched her. “You squeaked.”

Like a mouse. Stupid. Stupid.

“Storms scare me. I thought I'd better check the weather.”

“It's raining.”

Carrie rolled her eyes, almost smiled, though she was still too shivery. “What if there's a tornado?”

He shook his head. “Not going to happen.”

Something about the easy way he rejected the idea of a tornado soothed her. Maybe he was a meteorologist.

Carrie took a few steps into the kitchen. She didn't know this man, but she could always scream if he tried something, though not a soul in this house would hear her over the storm.

Comforting thought.

Want some—“ He saluted her with one of Julia's delicate white cups and a wry arch of eyebrow, sipped and made a face. “--lemon zinger tea?”

At times like this she wished she was as outgoing as Nikki or gorgeous like Bailey, or even a little wild and easy with men like Valery. But she was none of those things. She was plain Carrie, the librarian, wishing she could say something snappy and clever.

“If you don't like lemon zinger, pick a different kind.”
Very snappy and clever.
No wonder she was past thirty and still single.

“I wanted caffeine,” he said with a shrug.

“You won't get it from lemon zinger. Make coffee.”

“I would if I knew where the machine was.”

She lifted a finger. “
That
I can help you with.”

He dropped his head back. “Praise the saints and Maxwell
House.”

Bare feet soundless on the cool tile flooring, Carrie moved to a pantry and removed one of Julia's sterling silver French press urns. “We'll have to grind the beans. Julia's a bit of a coffee snob.”

“Won't the noise disturb the others?”

Thunder rattled the house. Carrie tilted her head toward the dark, rain-drenched window. “Will it matter?”

“Point taken. You're a lifesaver. What's your name?”

“Carrie Riley.” She kept her hands busy and her eyes on the work. The fact that she was ever-so-slightly aware of the stranger with the poet's face in a womanly kind of way gave her a funny tingle. She seldom tingled, and she didn't flirt. She was no good at that kind of thing. Just ask her sisters. “Yours?”

“Hayden Winters.”

“Nice to meet you, Hayden.” She held up a canister of coffee beans. “Bold?”

“I can be.”

She laughed, shocked to think this handsome man might actually be flirting a little. Even if she wasn't. “Bold, it is.”

As she'd predicted, the storm noise covered the grinding sound and in fewer than ten minutes, the silver pot's lever was pressed and the coffee was poured. The dark, bold aroma filled
the kitchen, a pleasing warmth against the rain induced chill.

Hayden Winters offered her the first cup, a courteous gesture that made her like him, and then sipped his. “You know your way around a bold roast.”

“Former Starbucks barista who loves coffee.”

“A kindred spirit. I live on the stuff, especially when I'm working, which I should be doing.”

She didn't want him to leave. Not because he was hot-which he was-but because she didn't want to be alone in the storm, and no one else was up. “You work at night?”

“Stormy nights are my favorite.”

Which, in her book, meant he was a little off-center. “What do you do?”

He studied her for a moment and, with his expression a peculiar mix of amusement and malevolence, said quietly, matter-of-factly, “I kill people.”

Copyright © 2015 by Linda Goodnight